The Inferno Mind of Evil
by EmelineCarter92
Summary: Why is the Doctor afraid of fire? Features the third Doctor and Jo Grant. Brief mentions of the Liz Shaw and the Brigadier. This is made in inspration of the 50th aniversary, March is Third Doctor Month.


_ 1970_

UNIT was overseeing security of "The Inferno" project, the nickname given to the project to penetrate the Earth's crust. It's goal was to reach pockets of Stahlman's Gas, which was theorised to be able to provide boundless amounts of cheap energy. Professor Stahlman was ill-tempered and obsessive about any interference with the progress of his work.

The project director, was concerned about this and tells Petra Williams, Stahlman's assistant, that he is calling an oil drilling expert, to consult on safety issues. UNIT was overseeing security at the project.

The Doctor tried using the output of the project's nuclear reactor to power experiments on the TARDIS Console, hoping to repair it in order to end the exile on Earth. While he tried to repair it he ended up in a parallel universe, where he met parallel versions of the Brigadier and Liz Shaw.

The Doctor tried to convince them that he is from another universe, but they believe he is trying to feign insanity, so he was held as prisoner. The Doctor managed to escape his cell and tried to stop the drilling but is discovered.

The parellel project had failed. An eath tremor rocks the installation and most of the technicians and RSF troops flee the complex in terror. The temperature rises rapidly as a green liguid oozes out of the drill shaft. Stahlmann and most of the scientists become primords. The Doctor tried to convince the others that he can stop this from happening in his own universe if they will help him to return. The Brigade Leader (the Briadier) demands him to save them too. Finally agreeing to help ,the Doctor,and the group fight off the hordes of primords with fireexinguisers, as the creatures thrive on heat and are vulnerable to cold temperatures. The parallel Petra, with Sutton's help, manages to feed power to the TARDIS console. The Doctor manages to return to his own universe just as a wall of lave sweeps towards the hut.

The Parallel Earth is consumed with fire. It had awakened something in the Doctor's subconcious. As a child he had had nightmares, nightmares of a planet being consumed in fire, his own planet.

* * *

_ Over 1,000 years ago_

When she arrived at her son's bedroom, she sighed in relief, as she realized that he was only having a nightmare. Mary walked over to her son and attempted to wake him up from his nightmare. "_sweetheart, please wake up._". She practically begged her son to open his dark brown eyes, while placing a comforting hand on his forehead. He apparently had a somewhat high fever. A small smile appeared on Mary's face as her son woke up from his nightmare. He latched onto her scared to let her go, which worried Mary.

Mary looked down at her son, with a concerned look on her face. She had to get him to calm down, so he could take some medicine and rest. " _Sweetheart, what did you see?_". After a minute or so of not talking, the child wiped his eyes ashamed of crying, and began to attempt to speak. "There was...fire. Everything was burning and everything was gone. You were gone!". A gasp escaped Mary, after hearing her son speak of the proshecy, when he had never heard it. Very few Time Lords had and her son wasn't even a Time Lord yet. If the procesy's of old were true, their planet destroyed by fire, her family split apart, was this the future she was doomed to have? After thinking quietly to herself, she looked down at her son and kissed the top of his head. "_I promise I won't leave you."_

A few nights after that Time Lords being chased down and killed by metalic creatures, shouting destrution and extermination. Everything, including the beautiful citadel was in ruins.

It was the knowledge planted in his head, the ancient ways of Rassilon, put there before Rossilon himself died, were coming forth. She feared that the knowledge would burn his mind, not even a single Time Lord should know that much.

The Time Lord Concil under the oder of Rassilon were fashioning the child into a weapon. And that's what they only saw him as, even her husband. But she loved the child, very, very much.

Her husband Ulysses asured her that when he went to the academy the nightmares would stop. If they kept his mind on other things, like his education, the knowledge would eventually bury itself.

A year later he seemed to forget about the nightmares, going about like a normal Gallifreyian kid, but reluctant to leave for the academy to become a Time assured him that everything was going to be alright. And it was, for 900 years.

What the Time Lords hadn't known was that the weapon they created to avoid the prochesy was ironically the cause of their ultimate demise. The destoryer. They had created their own parodox, and sought other means to save themselves.

But their fate could not be unwritten. The Time Lords were forever cursed to die., trapped in their own hell, by the hands of their savior.

Doctor, in old Gallifreyian, was the word for savior.

* * *

_1971_

Though he never remembered the nightmares, seeing the parallel Earth consumed in fire had set something off in him. Since then his third incarnation had been afraid of fire. It was triggered when he and his companion Jo Grant visited a remote prison to examine a new method of "curing" criminality, whereby the negative impulses are removed from the brain using the Keller Machine. The machine had effected the Doctor, as it had any human. It got inside the mind and used the persons worst fear against them.

Jo came in, breaking the machines concentration.

"Doctor, what did you see?" She asked.

"Fire." He answered.

"But why should you?" In the short time she had known him, it seemed the man wasn't afraid of anything.

"Sometime ago, Jo, I...I witnessed a terrible cotastrify." He hadn't realized how much he cared for this planet, despite being stranded on it. It was his people he had a hatred for, for leaving him here. "A whole world just disappeared in flames." He seemed to have a brief memory of another planet burning but he shook it aside. "This machine picked the memory out of my head and used it to attack me."

"But the fire you saw, it wasn't real."

"Neither were the water, or the rats." The Keller machine had claimed too lives already. "We believe what our minds tell us to, Jo."

"If this machine is so dangerous, why not just blow it up?" Jo asked, walking over to the machine. It only seemed to work on one person at a time.

"Because those idiots in authority won't let me, that's why." The Doctor would rather enjoy blowing something up. He never settled well with autority. "But I have to find a way to control it. So, if you finsished asking questions..." It was his que, telling her to leave so he could get to work.

"Alright." Jo said. "I'm going."

Just then Mike Yates enetered the room. The Doctor was to come back with him to London. The Doctor refused.

"If you don't come, I'll have to use force." Yates seemed a little hesitant. He grabbed the Doctor's arm, but the Doctor grabbed his, hitting a pressure point in Yates' arm, temproarly imobolizing him.

"Look, Doctor, the Briagdeir needs you, things are going really badly at the peace confirance. The Chinese delicates dead and we think he's been mudered."

This got the Doctor to reconsider. "Murdered? Yes Captain Yates, I'll come with you."

Jo valunteered to stay and look after things for him.

"Jo, for once in your young life do you think you can do exactly as I ask?" He told her to go and see the governor and lock the door. "No one is allowed in this room, no one." There weren't going to be anymore deaths. As he left he still thought of the Keller machine and how he was going to take care of it.

Whoever had to be behind the invention of this machine obviously wasn't human. It would take a great deal of intellegiance.

The Master was beind it all, the Doctor's old friend, turned foe. The Doctor had thought as much.

The Doctor and "Koshei" (the master's given Gallifreyian name.) were good friends. They used to run in the orange grass of the fields.

The Master's father didn't approve of their friendship as the Doctor was in the house of Longburrow. The house of Longburrow were placed in the Prydonian chapter, once they were ready for the academy.

Many of the children in the Prydonian chapter became Renegades. And the child's behavior determined, without a doubt he'd be one of the many. The Master's father had estates. His father's land back home, pastures of red grass, stretching far across the slopes of Mount Perdition. They used to run through those fields all day until Koshei's father expressed his disappproval.

So they would run by the fields near the house of Lungburrow until the Doctor's mother called them in for dinner.

When they had time to themselves the two friends, Koshei and Theta discussed what they wanted to be when they grew up. Koshei wanted to be a scientist and Theta wanted to be a space travel like his father. And he would meet humans.

They were playing what appeared to be cards but they had Gallifryian symbols on them.

"What would you do when you meet these pests?"

"They have these things called trains, their form of transportation, they have ropes you pull when you want to get off, and you can blow the whistle to make it go faster."

"Why'd you want to do that for?" Koshei didn't understand his friends fasination with humans or anything human related.

"It'd be fun." His friend replied. _ I'd probably fit in there than here. _Already he felt different. In his 7th incarnation he would be considered, "more than just a Time Lord"

Then he changed the subject. "I dare you to say my name."

Koshei did, then asked, "Don't you get offened when your name is shortened to a human name? It's silly."

Theta shrugged. "I like it." They continued to play their game in silence.

They were great friends unitl the initiation were Gallifreyian children looked into the Time Vortex, every day until the exposure to it, made them Time Lords.

The Master went insane, while the Doctor ran away. He hid in the museum where he saw his first TARDIS. It was an old Type fourty. When he was old enough he told himself he would fly her to the stars. And one day it came true.

The Doctor had a good life on Gallifrey the near 500 years of his life. He had a wife, although it had been arranged, had six children, five sons and a grandaughter.

One of his sons worked for the concil, which sort of displeased the Doctor, because he didn't approve of Time Lord law. They had powers beyond human reasoning and they just sat there, observing, doing nothing. Well he was going to become something, make history. Never had a Time Lord made effort to befriend the human race. He would never be seen as a dispointment by his own family or any other Time Lord again, trouble maker, turned renagade that he was. Though he didn't dislike his life. He was too happy, and also bored of how the Time Lords ran things, so he left. He took his grandaighter with him, his daughter's daughter.

They became exiles. Eventually his actions caught up with him and he was exhiled to Earth. It had been somewhat of a traumatic experiance at first, especially after being forced to regenerate. After regeration you had to find out who you were again. The fire had triggered painful memories.

The Doctor still had a few regrets. But not that he had disregaurded the order of his people, but his lost friendship with the Master.

The Master was in Professor Kettering's old office, as he spun around in the chair, the Doctor said, "Yes, I thought as much."

"You don't seem at all suprised." The Master said.

"Hardly." He sat down in a chair across from the Master. "And where is Miss Grant to be found?"

"Accomidating one of our best cells." Replied the Master. Now he couldn't let one of the Doctor's precious humans to be uncomfortable.

The Doctor was unbelileving of him. "Is she really? Well let me tell you something, if you harm one hair on her head, I'll..." He was cut off as the Master pulled a gun on him.

" you'll do nothing or I'll but a bullet through both your hearts."

The Doctor put his hands up in a mock gesture, showing he wasn't afraid of such a human weapon. "Why the delay. I gather I'll be killed eventually."

"Actually yes. And unfortunatly I find I'll need your help." The Master lowered the gun.

"You want me to help you with that Machine. You better be careful of it you know."

"I know. I'm the one who created it. Though it does seem to have developed a mind of it's own." Nothing, he was sure the Doctor can't fix. "But I have other matters at hand." His real game plan was using UNIT's missle and destroy the peace confirance, starting a war.

The Doctor pretended to accidently spill the glass of water on the desk, grabbing the desk, he flipped it causing the Master to fall back onto the floor. The Master reached for the gun. He fired at the Doctor several times but each round missed.

One of the guards on the rooftop fired down below as the Doctor made his way to Old Bessy. Dodging around the other parked cars as another guard made his move.

The Doctor managed to get back inside the building, and to the room where the Keller Machine was. The Master was waiting behind the door. "I knew you'd come back." The Master smiked, being the Doctor's old friend gave him an advantage.

A guard burst in, gun pointed at the Doctor. "I'll take that." The Master took the gun from him, keeping it trained at the Doctor. The Master adressed the guard, "Show out patient into the chair Mayler. And uh handcuff him into it.

Mayler did so.

Master excused the guard and he reveiled his plan to the Doctor, that he would control the machine for him. "It'll be entertaining to see how long you can hold out against it." He did some adjustments to make the machine his control over it against him. The Master laughed as he adjusted the last few controls and left the room. As much as he'd love to stay and watch the Doctor's nightmares, he had other business.

The Doctor struggled to free himself, the lights dim as the machine draws power. The faint glow starts to grow inside the cylinder of the machine, ready to feed. His head throbbed from the pain as his mind was invaded. His whole body tenses as horor from his past reawaken. A planet consumed in fire, the Daleks, demading destruction and extermination, and memories of every monster he had faced, Silurians, Zarbi, Ice wariors, war machines, and Cybermen. He passed out from the shock.

Outside the room the machine is having effect on the prisoners and the Master as well. He headed toward the Process Chamber and saw that the Doctor was unconcious. The Master tried switching off the Machine, that was still feeding. At first nothing happens. The Keller Machine finally shut down. He went over to the Doctor and felt for a pulse. There was none. Conserned he took out a stethoscope and pressed it to the left side of the Doctor's chest, still nothing. He tried the right side. There was a slow but steady beat. The Master thumped the Doctor's chest just over the left heart.

The Master slaps the Doctor's face. "Wake up. Wake up."

The Doctor slowly come round. "Well, welcome back." The Master said . "One of your hearts gave out. You were inches from dying."

The machine had severly weakened The Doctor. "You wanted know how long I...could hold out...againt that machine? The answer is I can't. No one can."

"But we are Time Lords."

"Aren't we just." Being a Time Lord didn't make any differance. If he was hooked up to the machine again he would surely die. If both hearts stopped before regeneration he would be dead. "I know, I know the secret of that machine. Inside it is a living creature that feeds on the evil of the mind. And soon it'll feed on yours."

The Master thought it proposerous. He had Mayler put him in the cell with Miss Grant. "Listen Doctor if you don't do what I tell you to, Miss Grant will be next in line for the process."

As Mayler shoved him into the cell, the Doctor fell to the floor unconcious. The Master entered.

"Master!" She exclaimed. "What have you been doing to him." She noticed the state of the Doctor.

"Just a little persation. Do try to make him see sense, my dear, for your sake." The Master left the cell.

Jo examined the Doctor, putting a hand to his forehead, which was bruning, then to his face, which was laced with sweat. She turned to the cell door and demanded to the Immate guarding the door to help. "We need help in here. Open the door."

The conviced open the door.

"Look at him. He needs a Doctor."

The convict shook his head. "Can't do, so."

"At least help me move him onto the bed."

In the process chamber the Keller Machine started to feed on the Master's fear. His own friend, the Doctor. The Master ran out of the room. The parasite feeding of the minds the Master gave to it, it turned against the Master.

* * *

Meanwhile the Prison Doctor was examining the Doctor. He was baffled with the Doctor's biology.

"What's the matter with him?" Jo asked.

The man shown a pen light into the Doctor's eyes. "His whole system's recieved a tremendious shock. He's in some kind of coma."

"Can't you do something for him?"

"Not much." He handed her a bottle of asprin. "Have him take one of these as soon as he comes around."

After he left the Doctor started to waken. Jo tried to get him to take the asprin, but he refused.

"Wrong." He said weakly, shaking his head. "Wrong metabalism. It'll...probably kill me, Jo. I'm...I'm alright, Jo. Just...;et me rest." He slowly closed his eyes.

Jo found herself on the verg of tears. It recalled a memory, from a few years back. She had been by her grandfather's bed side when he...She tried to not think about it any farther but she had. The Doctor couldn't die. Subconsiously she grabbed hold of his hand. "Doctor..please." She bowed her head, laying her head on his chest, and she did what she hadn't done since she was a little girl, prayed.

* * *

The Master told Mayler put a guard outside the Process Chamber. No one was to get in or out.

* * *

The next morning the Doctor was still unconcious. Jo demanded that they get some breakfast.

The convict ordered one of his buddies in and told him to go get some food from the kitchen.

One look at the Doctor, and the second convict said, "I don't think he'll need it." The two convicts left.

All of a sudden the Doctor sat bolt up right. "Now, my dear, perhaps we can do something about getting out of here."

Jo smiled brightly. He was back to his old self.

When the convict bringing them food came back, the knocked him out. The second one came in to see what the racket was. The Doctor hit him on the head with the tray and they made their escape.

Now they had to come up with an idea to foil the Master's plan.

The Keller Machine was growing stronger. The Doctor contacts the Master, who has gone to the hangar with the missile, and offers to return his dematerialisation circuit to his TARDIS in exchange for the missile. The Master agrees to this proposition on the guarantee he alone will come.

The Doctor has worked out that one of the prisoners, having been subjected to the Keller Machine once and having no evil in his mind anymore, is immune to its growing power and uses the prisoner as a shield in transporting the Machine to the hangar for his showdown with his enemy. The missle is triggered and the Machine destroyed. The Master uses the chaos to escape with the dematerialisation circuit.

Back at UNIT, Jo asked him if he remembered what he saw.

"Nothing, really, it's all a blur." He replied. It was a half lie, though he didn't remember much.

The Briagier called to them, it was something rather urgent. He bantered something about them, standing around all day."

The Doctor and Jo smiled at each other. As he put an arm around her shoulder, they headed out to their next adventure.


End file.
